Terrorists and social media

The Al Shabab group behind the Nairobi mall massacre was tweeting away to glory, justifying the dastardly attack in real time (one tweet every 7 minutes or so). Who stopped them? Not the Kenyan govt, but outraged netizens who complained to Twitter, got them to block the account. (They had been blocked earlier, on two occasions, but always managed to come back.)

Can a terrorist walk into a TV studio or a newspaper office and give lectures in real time, while a terror attack is going on? Safely protected from the police? No, but that’s what social networks are doing. If you ask why, they will point to ‘free speech’ and ‘self censorship by users’, which I think is just passing the buck. (Free speech is not for terrorists.)

Which is why I am partial to the govt monitoring/censoring social networks, in troubled hotspots. That terror outfits are using social media to spread hate is old news, the UP violence being a recent example. Yes, govt’s can and will misuse this, but the option is terrorists misusing social media.

Also on a separate note: Social networks don’t really know what’s happening in their own backyard. Here’s an example: A light-hearted young friend complained to Facebook about a particular post Mark Zuckerberg had posted, on grounds of ‘harassment’, it was removed. The offending post? Pets at the Facebook headquarters.

I think social networks need to get their act together, be more responsible. They are after all technology companies, shouldn’t be too difficult.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Shubho started life pirating video cassettes, writing and illustrating comic books, and selling vitamin tablets. Since then, he’s worked at India’s biggest ad agencies and brands for many years, cycled extensively in the Himalayas and run a few marathons. He’s currently working on interesting, digital-driven projects that will change India as we know it. No kidding.